Calling the death of Malayshia Allford — whose foster mother has been charged with murder — “a crisis of unimaginable proportions,” Mayor Cherelle L. Parker on Tuesday ordered the creation of a special committee to examine what went wrong in the city’s foster care system.
“The death of Malayshia [Allford] has shaken me and our city to its core,” Parker said in a statement announcing the executive order.
“The review required by law must take place, but I am requiring the city to do more. We must examine our foster care system thoroughly and independently, identify where it must improve and act to better protect our children,” Parker said.
As a foster child, Malayshia was in the legal custody of the Philadelphia Department of Human Services, city officials said, adding that the girl was receiving case management services from Catholic Community Services, Community Umbrella Agency No. 4. She also was receiving services from Pennsylvania MENTOR, the certifying foster care agency.
As required by state law, a team will conduct a review of Malayshia’s death and recommend steps to prevent future child abuse, city officials said.
Parker’s executive order separately establishes the Child Welfare Review Committee to examine the foster care system and recommend changes to better protect children.
The special committee will serve as an independent advisory board to review the city Department of Human Services, Community Umbrella Agencies (CUAs), and local foster care agencies, city officials said.
The mayor’s committee will examine how children are placed in foster care and how foster homes are selected, city officials said.
The committee also will look at city and state oversight of foster homes, the licensing of foster homes and visitation requirements, the city’s requirements for contracting with foster care service providers, and other matters that the committee may deem important, city officials said.
Parker will appoint up to 15 members to the committee, including national experts and other specialists. The members and two chairs for the committee will be named shortly, city officials said.
The committee will be required to submit its findings and recommendations with 120 days of convening.
“We will leave no stone unturned as we seek answers for what happened in this case, to understand more fully how it happened, and to make any changes necessary to ensure that it never happens again,” Parker said.
On Thursday, Carprice Williams, 36, was charged with murder in the death of Malayshia, whose body had been found the day before in the trunk of a car at an apartment complex in Lindenwold, Camden County.
Last month, Williams tried to cover up the circumstances of Malayshia’s death over the nearly two weeks the child was missing, police said.
According to police, witnesses who spent time inside Williams’ West Philadelphia home described chronic and horrific abuses: withholding food from the child for as long as a week, beating her with a phone cord, and throwing her down stairs, police said.
Williams provided relatives and law enforcement with conflicting accounts about when she had last seen the girl, and crafted a phony text exchange to support her story that the child’s biological parents had kidnapped her, police said.
A medical examiner determined that Malayshia died of blunt-force trauma, police said. She had a fractured rib, bruises on her head, torso, and buttocks, and whiplike marks across her legs, police said.
Williams had been a teacher in the Philadelphia School District, most recently teaching fifth grade at Lewis C. Cassidy Academics Plus School, a kindergarten-through-eighth-grade school in Overbrook.
The Philadelphia School District has declined to answer questions about the case.
Williams had been a foster parent since at least 2020.
According to a lawsuit, Williams took in two young siblings in 2021 — one of whom ended up in the hospital the next year with a traumatic brain injury, severe malnutrition, and marks indicative of being struck with an object.
A doctor at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia certified that 2021 event as a “near fatality.” A subsequent review that found the foster mother had committed abuse and recommended that she never be allowed to foster again, the lawsuit said.
Williams successfully appealed the child-abuse finding and her record was expunged, a Pennsylvania Department of Human Services spokesperson said.